Hi primal ragers,
Was doing my month of research for this game, the Arcade version this time. And it seems there are several versions. One of the Roms I booted into said version 2.3.
Was curious if anyone could shed light onto this, the only physical board access I have to a 3000 in 1 set installed on a local machine.
What are the major differences? which is being played majority of the time? And lastly which is the acceptable file to use for the run. I thought about messaging on discord but maybe some others could add to this or even explain the history of it.
Hey! I used to have physical boardsets of the 1.7 version and the 2.3 version. It's been so long since I've played 1.7 on original hardware, but I remember there being differences in some of the fights. For example, there's an easy cheese method for beating Blizzard on max difficulty on revision 2.3 where you can low kick him repeatedly and win. I don't think that cheese was possible in 1.7.
If I remember correctly, there was also something in 1.7 where the characters can land in mid air and stand up, which really messed some of my 2.3 patterns up.
It has been over 10 years though, and I could be confusing some of this stuff with the MAME bugs... The game runs differently in MAME than it does on hardware. It always has. To be honest, the game should probably have a category separation between emulation and real hardware. I was waiting till I got another arcade machine and started running this again before addressing it, because like I said, I can't remember the fine details.
Bottom line is 1.7, 2.3, and emulation all play differently enough that the AI patterns are different and you will need new patterns for each version. I also think there's a rare Japanese version of the game which contains even more differences. I haven't played it myself, but I heard they installed it at Galloping Ghost arcade... Just something of note.
As for the current category, I think the idea was to combine 1.7 and 2.3 and let the runner decide which revision better suited their needs. That's what we do over at the MK leaderboards, and it's worked out well. Saves us from chopping the main category into several subcategories of subcategories.
To clarify the revisions:
The arcade game has three total versions: v1.7, v2.3(W) and v2.3(J).
1.7 and 2.3(W) are quite different in gameplay. Some specials behave very differently, and AI patterns were altered to a great degree. The limit on combos increased from 14 to 20, with most requiring jump cancels in the corner to get above 9 or 10. Lots of balance adjustments as well. Damage, while still high, scales more aggressively.
If you were to try out primrage.zip in MAME today, it's going to be 2.3J, with primrageo.zip representing 2.3W. Despite only the region change in its designation, 2.3(J) is a whole other thing. Two of the AIs have changed (Sauron and Chaos), there are also some very minor balance changes, but the biggest changes go to the inputs.
Start is separated from the other four buttons, and most specials can be performed on positive edge more easily. Namely, three button specials now require just one; any special or finishing move input requiring the Up direction has been changed, and the Eat a Human input is now universal instead of unique.
If you have a genuine PCB, the program and MO roms can be flashed to 2.3J if you like, but I suggest getting a spare set of chips rather than flashing your originals.
